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Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work
A compelling look at the challenges facing LGBTQ+ professionals as they navigate their careers – with advice from many senior figures who have smashed their own rainbow ceilings.
There are currently only four LGBTQ+ CEOs across all Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies who are out at work, and just 0.8% of Fortune 500 board positions are filled by LGBTQ+ people. This deficit, occurring across sectors and around the world, reveals a diversity gap playing out in today's LGBTQ+ people are less likely to reach the top jobs. But what is holding LGBTQ+ people back at work – and what can be done?
Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling explores the hidden differences that cause LGBTQ+ people to be underrepresented at the most senior levels of professional life. Combining data with personal insights from over 40 prominent LGBTQ+ trailblazers, from CEOs to Ambassadors, Layla McCay reveals the challenges that LGBTQ+ people commonly encounter as they find their way in work environments, and provides the practical strategies that can help empower LGBTQ+ people to reach their full professional potential.
The book explores how everyone – from boards, CEOs, managers, HR professionals and colleagues, through to LGBTQ+ people navigating their own career paths – can recognize and address the barriers, achieve their career goals, and build a more inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and succeed.
There are currently only four LGBTQ+ CEOs across all Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies who are out at work, and just 0.8% of Fortune 500 board positions are filled by LGBTQ+ people. This deficit, occurring across sectors and around the world, reveals a diversity gap playing out in today's LGBTQ+ people are less likely to reach the top jobs. But what is holding LGBTQ+ people back at work – and what can be done?
Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling explores the hidden differences that cause LGBTQ+ people to be underrepresented at the most senior levels of professional life. Combining data with personal insights from over 40 prominent LGBTQ+ trailblazers, from CEOs to Ambassadors, Layla McCay reveals the challenges that LGBTQ+ people commonly encounter as they find their way in work environments, and provides the practical strategies that can help empower LGBTQ+ people to reach their full professional potential.
The book explores how everyone – from boards, CEOs, managers, HR professionals and colleagues, through to LGBTQ+ people navigating their own career paths – can recognize and address the barriers, achieve their career goals, and build a more inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and succeed.
- GenresNonfiction
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 23, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 13, 2023
*As a Collections Management Librarian, I was given an ARC of this book for free for consideration for our collection.
This book is so long overdue and I'm so happy to see it's being published next year.
It was so empowering, but also scary and sad, to see many of my experiences as a queer person in the workplace reflected back to me on the page.
Allies, please take the time to read this to learn more about how you can help even the playing field for queer people.
This book is so long overdue and I'm so happy to see it's being published next year.
It was so empowering, but also scary and sad, to see many of my experiences as a queer person in the workplace reflected back to me on the page.
Allies, please take the time to read this to learn more about how you can help even the playing field for queer people.
October 1, 2024
I have struggled with a few books in the past requiring lengthy reading time. Barbara Kingslover's, The Poisonwood Bible for instance, which took me an age to realise that each chapter was in a particular characters voice and that it wasn't the authors inability to write; or Louis De Bernieres' Captain Corellis Mandolin that was so well written I had to read it with a dictionary in order to decipher at least one word every three or four pages.
But nothing, and I genuinely mean nothing that I've ever read in my life, recquired as much determined reading as Breaking The Rainbow Ceiling, which I only did purely to say I had read it from cover to cover. It literally had me shouting out loud at every page. In fact to review it fairly would actually take another book, as there is so much wrong with this work.
Let's take the screamingly obvious failing; McCay suggests that there is a problem with LGBTQ+ representation in the FTSE 100 (UK) & Fortune 500 (USA) companies, but acknowledges she doesn't really know if that's true or not, as there is no requirement for anyone to come out publicly about their sexuality/identity.
Which kind of ends her argument right there and makes you wonder why the publisher, Bloomsbury of all people, didn't just go, well maybe do some primary research?
Worse still though is the grouping of sexuality, gender identity and labelling all under the ubiquitous banner of LGBTQ+. Ethnic communities (to which I am a member) had long addressed this grouping problem when they got rid of the BAME moniker (Black/Asian/Minority Ethnic) as the subsection of groups under a banner have such entirely different experiences, to try and suggest that their life experiences are in anyway similar is ludicrous.
Thing go from bad to terrible as McCay makes up statistics whenever she finds a fact she doesn't like e.g. how small the LGBTQ+ population is in the UK from the last census (2021), which she claims is wrong purely on her gut, but offers no evidence whatsoever to support that conclusion.
The worst part of this book though is you actually want to read about the stories that aren't covered. Over and over and over again, she says things like, many people I talked to had no problems at all and had inordinately succesful careers with no barriers due to their sexuality or gender idetnity.
Surely they are the stories the readers want to hear. The good experiences, the examples to follow not the smattering of historical examples she picked out for this book to attempt to validate her own personal experience.
Most of the case studies she's selected come from a different time too - a place in history where Gay rigths were still being fought strongly for and nobody used pronouns in their email signatures. Thus it begs the question who has this actually been written for?
The books title would make a reader think she's talking about all careers but her focus is entirely on the corporate drone types who wish to climb career ladders in bland and rigid institutions with all that entails.
And even then, nearly every example of someoe struggling with "Coming-Out" for fear of retirbution goes onto explain once they did so, they were suprised to discvoer either nobody cared and nothing changed or even better, that people were inordinately supportive and embracing.
Most of the companies that she cites as good employers for the LGBTQ+ communities have attrocious track records elsewhere. Facebook is repeatedly presented as good employer but no discussion of the attrocious impact they've had on the planet or social cohesion in human society.
Oil companies even get a pat on the back here.
The biggest faux-pas for me in this work, is McCay doesn't acknowledge that outside the 600 jobs on the planet she decided to focus on (CEO of the FTSE 100 & Fortune 500), that in the UK at least, when you step away from the gigantic corporations LGBTQ+ CEO's in all other Companies are over represented when compared to their percentage of the general population.
https://www.raconteur.net/responsible...
And thus, if we use her own argument of percentages as a marker of success or failure for breaking the rainbow ceiling, the above result proves it has been utterly shattered, which makes the entire point of her book utterly moot.
I wouldn't waste any of your time on it, especially as the time I spent reading it, I want back!
Paul Atherton FRSA
But nothing, and I genuinely mean nothing that I've ever read in my life, recquired as much determined reading as Breaking The Rainbow Ceiling, which I only did purely to say I had read it from cover to cover. It literally had me shouting out loud at every page. In fact to review it fairly would actually take another book, as there is so much wrong with this work.
Let's take the screamingly obvious failing; McCay suggests that there is a problem with LGBTQ+ representation in the FTSE 100 (UK) & Fortune 500 (USA) companies, but acknowledges she doesn't really know if that's true or not, as there is no requirement for anyone to come out publicly about their sexuality/identity.
Which kind of ends her argument right there and makes you wonder why the publisher, Bloomsbury of all people, didn't just go, well maybe do some primary research?
Worse still though is the grouping of sexuality, gender identity and labelling all under the ubiquitous banner of LGBTQ+. Ethnic communities (to which I am a member) had long addressed this grouping problem when they got rid of the BAME moniker (Black/Asian/Minority Ethnic) as the subsection of groups under a banner have such entirely different experiences, to try and suggest that their life experiences are in anyway similar is ludicrous.
Thing go from bad to terrible as McCay makes up statistics whenever she finds a fact she doesn't like e.g. how small the LGBTQ+ population is in the UK from the last census (2021), which she claims is wrong purely on her gut, but offers no evidence whatsoever to support that conclusion.
The worst part of this book though is you actually want to read about the stories that aren't covered. Over and over and over again, she says things like, many people I talked to had no problems at all and had inordinately succesful careers with no barriers due to their sexuality or gender idetnity.
Surely they are the stories the readers want to hear. The good experiences, the examples to follow not the smattering of historical examples she picked out for this book to attempt to validate her own personal experience.
Most of the case studies she's selected come from a different time too - a place in history where Gay rigths were still being fought strongly for and nobody used pronouns in their email signatures. Thus it begs the question who has this actually been written for?
The books title would make a reader think she's talking about all careers but her focus is entirely on the corporate drone types who wish to climb career ladders in bland and rigid institutions with all that entails.
And even then, nearly every example of someoe struggling with "Coming-Out" for fear of retirbution goes onto explain once they did so, they were suprised to discvoer either nobody cared and nothing changed or even better, that people were inordinately supportive and embracing.
Most of the companies that she cites as good employers for the LGBTQ+ communities have attrocious track records elsewhere. Facebook is repeatedly presented as good employer but no discussion of the attrocious impact they've had on the planet or social cohesion in human society.
Oil companies even get a pat on the back here.
The biggest faux-pas for me in this work, is McCay doesn't acknowledge that outside the 600 jobs on the planet she decided to focus on (CEO of the FTSE 100 & Fortune 500), that in the UK at least, when you step away from the gigantic corporations LGBTQ+ CEO's in all other Companies are over represented when compared to their percentage of the general population.
https://www.raconteur.net/responsible...
And thus, if we use her own argument of percentages as a marker of success or failure for breaking the rainbow ceiling, the above result proves it has been utterly shattered, which makes the entire point of her book utterly moot.
I wouldn't waste any of your time on it, especially as the time I spent reading it, I want back!
Paul Atherton FRSA
June 9, 2024
An extraordinary multinational account of the career successes (and struggles) of LGBTQ+ people, focusing on high achievers in government/civil service and the corporate world.
Many of the contributors/interviewees will not be familiar to general readers, especial in the US - I only recognized one (Pips Bunce) - but their experiences touch upon things that are nearly universal for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. The author includes information about each at the beginning along with frequent reminders of their career track/background.
I encountered a lot of instances in the book where I felt like, I wish my boss had known that, or, that was what I spent years trying to teach my coworker, or, that's where the DEI program at [redacted] really failed its staff. The content was very relatable, even though it was largely written for people who had reached a level of visibility and success that is more substantial than the average person (queer or straight) ever will.
There were some very small areas of disagreement, but for the most part, I thought the book was brilliant and rather groundbreaking compared to every single thing I've read of LGBTQ+ experiences in the workplace.
I think the author neglected a sort of survivorship bias in that she only encountered people who had bypassed or overcome discrimination and other obstacles. This may be clearer to me because I gave up a higher level position on an organization's leadership team to move to another state (WA) because of laws passed that significantly reduced my civil rights in that state (MT), moving me to middle-management, which would have been below the author's level of interest.
That said, those individuals had incredible insights into challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community both historically and today.
The book was written in a readable, well organized style, and isn't too academic in tone for the general reader, although TBH, a broad/general interest in world affairs will help. Or at least some interest in the existence of other countries and regions of the world. (Mainly saying this for US readers.) It also contains a lot of data that is both interesting and potentially useful, although not always pleasing.
The end of the book is very heart-string tugging for this kind of book.
Overall, highly recommended. Although -useful- for reading by cisgender, heterosexual people, the book is written for the queer gaze, which is incredibly rare and made me love it more.
May purchase a copy.
Many of the contributors/interviewees will not be familiar to general readers, especial in the US - I only recognized one (Pips Bunce) - but their experiences touch upon things that are nearly universal for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. The author includes information about each at the beginning along with frequent reminders of their career track/background.
I encountered a lot of instances in the book where I felt like, I wish my boss had known that, or, that was what I spent years trying to teach my coworker, or, that's where the DEI program at [redacted] really failed its staff. The content was very relatable, even though it was largely written for people who had reached a level of visibility and success that is more substantial than the average person (queer or straight) ever will.
There were some very small areas of disagreement, but for the most part, I thought the book was brilliant and rather groundbreaking compared to every single thing I've read of LGBTQ+ experiences in the workplace.
I think the author neglected a sort of survivorship bias in that she only encountered people who had bypassed or overcome discrimination and other obstacles. This may be clearer to me because I gave up a higher level position on an organization's leadership team to move to another state (WA) because of laws passed that significantly reduced my civil rights in that state (MT), moving me to middle-management, which would have been below the author's level of interest.
That said, those individuals had incredible insights into challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community both historically and today.
The book was written in a readable, well organized style, and isn't too academic in tone for the general reader, although TBH, a broad/general interest in world affairs will help. Or at least some interest in the existence of other countries and regions of the world. (Mainly saying this for US readers.) It also contains a lot of data that is both interesting and potentially useful, although not always pleasing.
The end of the book is very heart-string tugging for this kind of book.
Overall, highly recommended. Although -useful- for reading by cisgender, heterosexual people, the book is written for the queer gaze, which is incredibly rare and made me love it more.
May purchase a copy.
August 27, 2024
I really like this book, it has a good way to explain the rainbow ceiling and their importance at the workplace. I really like the way the author ask questions and the queer people explains with so much heart every aspect. I would love to see more numbers to make the book more approachable for the non LGBTI+ people. I would recommend to everyone who works at DEI and LGBTI+ themes.
April 23, 2025
"Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling" by Layla McCay is a precious resource for every professional who is either a member of the LGBT+ community or an ally.
How I wish it had been published years ago!
I can highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to better understand their own or their loved one's professional journey, and to further their career and improve their job satisfaction.
How I wish it had been published years ago!
I can highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to better understand their own or their loved one's professional journey, and to further their career and improve their job satisfaction.
May 10, 2024
Another much needed bookclub read, very interesting analysis of the restrictions in the workplace around being LGBTQ+ and what we need to thrive at work!
January 20, 2026
While inspiring, I did not find this particularly helpful.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews